I'm not sure people in the other thread really understand what I meant when being critical, so I thought this topic could serve as an example. (Maybe I misunderstood SKesselman's and tomos' reply but I got the impression that they think criticism = insulting.)

Since the topic of systems had not come up in the GOE 2009 thread, and you didn't specify that you were referring to systems in your comment, I assumed you were talking about heavily criticizing participants' failed attempts at becoming more organized. People are kind of putting themselves out there for all the world to see, so I'm sure you understand my concern a little more clearly now, as I understand what you were referring to, originally.

Oh SKesselman, I don't think you misunderstood. Yeah, I was also planning to criticize participants failed attempts not to laud them but as part of the whole criticizing systems in general too. If I feel they have misinterpreted the functionality or role of a system, I feel as part of progressing productivity that everyone should have the right to criticize them for it. At the same time, they too have a right to call me out on what's wrong with my interpretation.

I feel it's necessary or else we'll always have this fog where political correctness will always hinder the progress of productivity. I think it holds the same for applications. If a person came in expecting an application to be different than a person can only help if they tell them that they came in expecting something else from a system. (from our own interpretation of such systems)

^ In that link, users criticized a person for treating OneNote as a file manager/search indexer and because they did, they were able to offer other alternatve solutions for the user. I'm not saying it should be open season for criticism and insults but just because David Allen in this video was self-critical doesn't mean that his words would help less if he was criticizing someone else besides himself.